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Published on 2025-02-02 23:45:00 | words: 2662

Yes, quite a long title, for this article- but will try to keep the article itself (quite) short and direct.
The first point is obviously the number of references to the concept of "bias".
So, I will start with that.
Few sections:
_ biases and their context
_ guilty as charged: change as bias-generator
_ biases and marketing territories
_ creative integration of biases
Biases and their context
Many, myself included, whenever talking about "bias" (or "biases"), include a negative overtone.
As an example, considering just the AI models applied to decisions, a "bias" might imply that some facial scanning security software seems to be able to spot just white people.
AI is making biases more visible in everyday life, but actually whenever a decision is made, some biases get through.
I shared few days ago a polyptych with 6 pictures of Turin showing different locations in the center of the town.
Eventually, added a comment about "Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny"- a 1920s satire.
Also if you do not like the politics of Brecht/Weil, it is funny.
And it was funny that later in that day received an email update from Foreign Affairs about a book review "Rise and Fall of economic statecraft", within the January/February issue.
Actually, this article was supposed to go online on 2025-01-18, as wrote in that post, but then decided to wait a couple of weeks.
Reason? To have time to observe a bit how the biases will play a role after the beginning of the second term of President Trump- notably within my fellow Italian and EU observers.
All the apparently disconnected points shared so far in this section are actually integrating biases: also the pictures that shared on Facebook in that link above- but will explain that in a later section.
The key element is that biases generally, when discussing their negative side, are considered as a kind of instinctive reflex, not a choice.
Anyway, the way we structure some activities actually implicitly generates biases.
Guilty as charged: change as bias-generator
You can have a look at the "cognitive bias codex" to see a longer list.
Anyway, my focus in this article is just one of that long list: the confirmation bias (you can read "technical" details here).
Why this choice? Because it has a habit of being part of any decision-making activity.
I have a tradition that I kept from my time when I was delivering training on processes, management training, etc.
I routinely joke about myself and my personal experience whenever I was to discuss an issue that requires change- specifically, something that could have done better or at least in a different way.
In any change activities, as you can see in my articles on this website (as well as in any of the mini-books on change that published since 2012), there are some preliminary steps.
In my pre-2012 times, when was actually delivering cultural and organizational change and development services as a management consultant (i.e. before being made to return to Turin, Italy, where I was born, also if 99% of my business experience until then was done elsewhere), there were few "qualification" steps that followed before accepting a mission.
The more we live, the more the "patterns" that we collect, the more any new events are "pigeonholed" within the classification structure that gradually we built for ourselves.
We can obviously evolve that classification scheme- or, at least, some of us do.
Others, will keep for life with the same classification of scheme, discounting any new information that might affect their carefully tailored classification scheme.
So, what were my preliminary steps? To make a long story short, will select a few
_ understanding the real interest, as I am not into the "getting paid by the customer to tell what is the time after getting their watch", but real change
_ confirming that the request came from somebody able to deliver a mandate adequate for the initiative
_ doing an assessment on the current status and areas that would be affected
_ etc etc
Each one of those preliminary steps is under a significant risk of being subject to confirmation bias.
Of course, the first steps are based on a (positive) form of confirmation bias: based upon past patterns, find if the mission should be accepted.
Anyway, as the prospectus of financial investments used to say, past performance is not representative of future performance.
Still, you can improve (as I did over few decades, as, beside what I learned from my first employer's knowledge base, I had to do a lot of trial-and-error-and-adjust).
Frankly, in most cases, if you have the choice, those patterns get just confirmed the more you go- as I wrote in the past, technology evolved fast, but our social structures and customs still embed patterns derived from our cavemen past.
The third one is where the negative side of confirmation bias could seriously affect further choices: about objectives, goals, and overall course of action.
As my focus was on cultural and organizational change within organizations, obviously the specific cultural context had an influence.
In a multinational context, usually there is a blend of patterns that allows to keep a balance and minimize the confirmation bias, by having different frameworks of reference that, if used properly, allow to adjust.
More interesting instead is what happens when you have culture that is inward-looking but not acknowledging its own "forma mentis".
Or, as I wrote in that Facebook post linked above, its own "genius loci".
Biases and marketing territories
I will not talk about business, but about the interlocking between business and politics, which, in a former company town (automotive), such as my birthplace Turin, is akin to a Gordian knot.
I had to leave Turin in the 1990s, to actually develop skills and roles, first in Italy, then abroad- as locally there were no opportunities unless you were connected.
And after considering returning in the early 2000s from abroad (including by accepting unpaid side activities for startups and a discounted rate for Government projects, while billing commercial customers the usual rate), eventually instead shifted to another country, returning formally resident in 2012 not upon my own choice, but upon choice of somebody else between Turin and Rome.
A company town, notably in Italy, has a quite peculiar social dynamics- the separation of private and public is not as clear-cut as elsewhere.
Past successes breed a kind of expectation that as the town was big and powerful in the past, it will keep being so forever.
And that any initiative, no matter how divergent from the original "patterns" that generated past successes, and no matter how different the context is, is going to be equally successful.
This attitude has impacts on multiple dimensions: it is not just business, but also politics and society that often sound out of touch with reality, and unable to frankly assess the real capabilities and potential of the territory- a basic yet honest SWOT would be considered a "lèse majesté", if not outright treason.
In a delusion of grandeur, often sidelining local capabilities (and I am not talking about myself- I am talking about aggregates) to follow the newest fad and, based upon past successes, present itself as "the natural location for" whatever is new and trendy.
Quite curious, if you consider that the only continuity I saw since returning in 2012 was the number of new initiatives and "bureaucratic cathedrals" launched locally, on a grandiose scale.
So, I think that I am not the only one from outside the territory (as I am an outsider, having been outside town since the late 1980s) who does not see why should support those "bureaucratic cathedrals".
As in Mahagonny (translated from German), "we do not need hurricanes", we need to remove old habits that keep cocooning choices.
Personally, already almost a decade ago was told that I was on a "freeze" as others had other plans- but, of course, the local confirmation bias shows up within the "genius loci" assumption that choices are not individual, but delegated to a local version of the "God committee" (interesting 2021 movie about ethical choices that I was watching while completing this article).
So, it does not seem that social engineering and minimizing confirmation bias work, if left to an inward-looking approach.
If you look at my CV, you will see that supported pro-bono and not-for-profit activities (including by working for free to help business and marketing planning of startups).
Still, I stopped in mid-2000s to support those in my birthplace: you need local tribal connections to share into some of the value that you might generate.
Not even the locals élites frankly do what my UK and USA colleagues called "giving back" after receiving from the territory- as was said in a conference few years ago about the future of Turin, the same people keep switching from chair to chair.
Too much "ballast", deriving not just from being a fading company town, but also from decades of sedimentation of the same political coalition that did not see any need to adapt and evolve, just to manage inward-looking successions and ensuring organizational presence continuity.
The side-effect? How often some form of recognition was mutually bestowed: the more you need medals and accolades to confirm your status, the less your status is real.
So, here comes the confirmation bias: if, instead of connecting outside, to position the territory, you keep talking about "excellence" of the territory (yes, as I wrote in the past, that early 1980s book by Peters and Waterman- I still have a copy that was given by the UK side of a partner company, in 1988 or 1989)...
...and giving each other a recognition of "excellence" way too often...
...it ends up being something that you really believe and expect that also those outside the territory acknowledge.
Which is not the case: as noticed by other non-locals, it has become almost a ritual- any visiting star has to utter that would like to settle here- and never does.
Turin, due to its industrial past, has a blessing that sometimes unfortunately is detrimental: has two of the largest banking foundations in Italy, with an aggregated capital of over 10bln EUR (Fondazione CRT and Compagnia Sanpaolo).
In the past decades, when it was time to reposition the town to shift from an automotive-centric to a different model, the presence of the two banking foundations resulted in what I called "sprinkler money": enough to keep smaller initiatives afloat, almost as an occupation agency, but not enough to develop something that would generate significant, self-sustainable revenue streams (and jobs), significant enough to replace those lost in automotive and associated support industries (including logistics and banking, of course).
So, hard choices kept being postponed and postponed.
Over the last decade, saw a gradual improvement- less sprinkler, and more investments, but still too much focused on "boxes" that would then look for a "raison d'être", not on creating an ecosystem that would be self-sustainable.
Scarcity is the mother of invention, while cocooning generates a "rentier" mentality: as somebody said recently, "capitalists without capital".
Anyway, this local confirmation bias can actually act as a motivator, if properly managed.
Creative integration of biases
Also in Turin, whatever new happens or reserves the future, or any potential new "tremendous opportunity", would require a mindset in tune with the times, resources, and real current capabilities.
And this would require a frank assessment of what in the current "toolbox" of patterns could be detrimental.
There are anyway elements of existing patterns derived from past glories that could still be useful to "seed" new patterns- and integrate with times.
If you look at the list of biases within the picture linked above, search then the definition of each one of them, and try to consider flipping the coin- integrating the bias as a positive motivator to elicit a response that is in tune with your needs.
The point is: gamification, nudging, and many behavioral approaches are actually using biases in a constructive way (albeit potentially manipulative- it is a matter of ethics, as usual).
Could be cognitive biases, or could be, as in neuromarketing, the knowledge and use of what is structurally embedded in our "wiring"- or the result of evolution.
The point is framing information and initiatives in a way to elicit a response.
Actually, if you are on social media, probably you know that the infrastructure takes care, on your behalf, of that- e.g. by presenting more of what you already selected, and shutting off what is outside that scope.
Unfortunately, also in many monitoring systems, new data or emerging patterns do not get the attention that they deserve, and misuse of artificial intelligence is reinforcing those results, by again doing on a subtler scale what social media do.
Anyway, it is an approach that formally or informally has been routinely used- also in my birthplace (or even Italy- we have thousands of years of experience).
Trouble is, being able to elicit a response by embedding biases, i.e. layering future responses on them, is addictive- and generate again a confirmation bias on those adopting this approach.
Yes, closing the circle: the more you use these tools, the more you assume to have a kind of immunity from potential uses of the same tools by others- against you.
A creative use of biases to ease change requires constantly reminding that your use of them is neither unique nor original.
It will be interesting to see how the Gordian knot of local entanglement will be cut, and what the results will be.
Still, it requires accepting change and its consequences, not cocooning in a mythical past.
Because, as somebody said, no plan survives contact with reality (have a look at a mini-book and associated fictional compliance case study that released between 2015 and 2018).
Stay tuned!